Clinton, Obama divide spoils in Nevada

CAMPAIGN 2008 - HISPANICS, WOMEN PROVE KEY

She won 1 fewer delegate than he did, upping the stakes in South Carolina.

January 20, 2008|By Jeff Zeleny and Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times

LAS VEGAS -- Sen. Hillary Clinton won the vote in the Nevada Democratic caucuses Saturday, giving her a second consecutive victory in what is shaping up as a protracted battle with Sen. Barack Obama.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney coasted to victory in the first major Western contest of the presidential campaign.

While the rest of the Republican field focused on the primary in South Carolina, Romney concentrated some of his campaign's resources on this state, flying in last week for a last-minute push. His rivals overlooked Nevada, largely because state rules do not automatically assign delegates to the winning candidate, unlike in South Carolina, where GOP voters also went to the polls Saturday.

Clinton scored a clear victory in Nevada by the number of people attending the caucuses on her behalf, but Obama's campaign won by another measure: in the allocation of delegates to the national nominating convention, a result of a complex formula that gave more weight to votes in some parts of the state. Obama won 13 delegates compared with 12 for Clinton.

Another Democratic candidate, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, placed a distant third in Nevada, a state he once viewed as crucial to his prospects. Edwards has a chance to rebound Saturday in South Carolina, where he was born. But the Democratic contest already appears to be turning into a long-term fight between Clinton and Obama.

The results in Nevada had encouraging signs for Clinton. She did well among women and Hispanics, two constituencies she is counting on as the campaign heads toward a coast-to-coast showdown in 22 states Feb. 5.

The battle was most fiercely fought in Las Vegas, particularly at the casinos that hosted some of the caucuses. This provided an odd tableau for a nominating contest: women in black-sequined cocktail dresses and neatly pressed maid uniforms, and men coming off their shifts in the bar and wearing sunglasses indoors as they voted.

The contest in Nevada drew record turnout among Democratic caucus-goers, a reflection of the intensity of the race. In hundreds of precinct caucuses, including nine casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, about 116,000 voters took part in the first Western contest in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, 10 times the number in the 2004 caucuses here.

The Democratic results give the Clinton campaign a morale boost as it heads into the more challenging terrain of South Carolina, where Democrats hold their primary Saturday. Obama is hoping the large black Democratic electorate gives him his first victory since his first-place performance in the Iowa caucuses Jan. 3.

Nevada was selected to play an early role in the presidential nominating contest because of its diversity and to signal the importance Western states hold for Democrats.

But it was the most chaotic of the early-voting states, with allegations of political high jinks and a late lawsuit that challenged holding caucuses in casinos.

"I don't want to say it's embarrassing, because I'm here, but I do see why people would think it's strange that we are voting in a casino," said Tiffany Romero, 31, a barista who participated at Wynn Las Vegas. "It's not normal from what our country is doing, but this is Las Vegas."